That’s a good point. And to add to it, I’ve tried using Briar as an emergency option if there’s no Internet. And there seems to be a massive flaw in that scenario: you need the Internet to authenticate yourself on the app. So if there’s no Internet it’s useless. I just tried switching off WiFi and 5G on my phone and yup, can’t log in, so can’t use it.
The interesting thing for me is that Grok was originally pretty ‘woke’ itself. Then Musk lobotomized it and turned it into a Nazi.
100% agree about boycotting everything that toxic nepo-baby asshole touches. Tesla, Twitter, Space X, whatever.
I just went into my settings after reading this article (and getting a bit frustrated that it was a wall of text with no clear instructions right up front).
I did a search in settings for “gemini” and found the Gemini settings. There’s no clear ‘off’ switch. But there’s is an option to switch back to Google Assistant. So I did that. And not when I search for Gemini in settings it urges me to enable Gemini.
I’m taking that as a good sign that I’ve disabled it permanently. Thought I’d post this info in case it helps someone else. Or so if I’m incorrect somebody else can correct me.
This is a great idea, but it would be difficult to manage.
It reminds me of the instant messenger wars during the late 1990s/early 2000s.
AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) had a virtual monopoly on the industry, and so when Microsoft started breaking into it with MSN Messenger they cracked AIM’s protocol so their users could communicate with AIM users. This enraged AOL, and there was a wild cat-and-mouse updates battle for a few months. AOL would push an update to block Microsoft, then Microsoft would push an update to get around that. Sometimes there were multiple updates from both sides per day.
And then there was Trillian messenger just sneaking through the middle providing access to both, mostly unnoticed (at least for a while).
Okay. But one of my points still stands that there are already a bunch of p2p Bluetooth-based messaging apps out there.
Oh great, yet another secure messaging app.
Getting people to move off Messenger or even WhatsApp is tricky enough already for to interview and resistance to change. But even when you can coax them to move, you then often end up in a debate about where to move to. Signal, Briar, Viber, whatever proprietary thing Apple is currently pushing, or the thousands of other options/apps. I guess we can just add this one to that long list.
I try to use local stores or other websites, and only use Amazon if I can’t find what I need there. But at least half the time I end up having to use Amazon because I can’t find what I need.
It’s probably a kind of vicious cycle: as Amazon eats further into profits of other companies they are more limited in what they can offer.
JavaScript, AJAX, and modern web frameworks have pushed us away from displaying information in a pure and clean way. We need to go back to a better time!
Looks at no-HTML websites
Shit, we’ve gone back too far!
Screw that. Give the government a way to track my vitals 24/7 and sell that information off to their cronies in the private sector? No thanks.
Ah yes, the predecessor to the ‘Gulf of America’ idiocy.
That’s not how knowledge works. You can’t just have an LLM hallucinate in missing gaps in knowledge and call it good.
I gave up Reddit after the great API fiasco. Once in a while I check out Bluesky, about the same frequency as I look at Mastodon. But about 98% of my social media time is spent on Lemmy.
Especially that punisher skull motif with the Trump hair. That takes the cringe to a new level.
Cybertruck drivers.
ETA: Regular Tesla drivers I give the benefit of the doubt to, because they might have bought their car before they realized Musk is a Nazi dickhead man-child. But cybertruck drivers basically knew and didn’t care (or still fanboi’d over him).
Dating someone with opposing views is the easier of two situations people can find themselves in.
The harder situation is when you date and marry someone with similar views to yours, but then 5, 10, 15, etc years into the marriage they get radicalized by family members or YouTube. And suddenly their opinions change overnight and you are legally bound to an angry, hostile stranger.
Well, it makes most of us happier. There was a minority of people who were very unhappy about remote working and who were eager for everyone to be forced back into the office. Not me, but there were some people.
Good news good Signal.
No, not really. Not for my own pleasure anyway. When I’m not working, helping my wife out keeping the house tidy and raising our kids, doing misc planning for the family, budgeting, and trying to just relax, I’m too tired to play games.
The only games I play are games with my kids, and even though it creates some fond memories, it kind of kills my enthusiasm for gaming in general. It’s sort of like when your job is your hobby, usually the shine of that hobby wears off and it largely becomes a grind.
Surprised nobody here has mentioned Mr Rogers Neighborhood yet.
Anal Pilot